So I'm in the home stretch of supporting myself in the most expensive city ever, and I'm elated to be coming back home. I'm much too young to be this worried about money, but that's me. It sounds kind of wrong in my head when I think "I'm coming home" because Calgary just doesn't feel that way to me. Most of my family is not really there anymore so the only thing home-y about it will be living with my mum and brother again. And I think we could live anywhere together, and that place would feel like home to me. It sounds pretty gay, but living on my own and being independent, never really made me feel like an adult. I can support myself just fine, it's not difficult and I think I expected it to be a lot harder. Like being an adult means your smothered on a daily basis with responsibilities and worries but I've never personally felt that. So I still feel like a baby. It's not even a money thing (outside of the fact I need money for school and fuck loans), I just know I'll be happier living with my mum again.
I applied late to ACAD so I probably won't be starting my first year until January. Which is hugely irritating because the program I want to get into for my second year only starts in the Fall. This basically tacks on an entire year onto when I was hoping to finish the degree. I figured I could take credit courses starting this September and try to finish the requirements for my first year by June. I can't register as a non degree student because I won't be in the city when that registration becomes available. So I emailed the Extended Studies department in hopes of learning what courses they might have, and see if there was a possibility that I might not need to take an extra year for my degree. For some reason, the thought just terrified the shit out of me. I didn't want to be 26 and still in school, I want to be working! I've been panicking about this all last week. Fuck, why didn't I just apply sooner, why didn't I just figure out what I wanted to do, why didn't I just go to school here in BC. I made a schedule for what classes I needed and could possibly take in the Fall, Winter and Spring semesters. I would go to school six days a week, just please let me finish in four years.
I'm freaking out over this, and not hearing back from Extended Studies. Then a few nights ago, I'm on Facebook and a whole album of sonogram photos is posted by a friend of mine. A guy who turned 21 two weeks before I did. And I'm clicking around and see another 3 or 4 people I went to this same junior high with, same age and everything and they have kids too.
I suddenly felt more relaxed about everything in my life and didn't care if it was going to take me four, five or six years to finish my degree. As long as I don't have a baby before I'm 26, I think I can be pretty pleased with whatever it is I do with my life. I called ACAD today after not getting a reply to my email and they said the credit courses would no longer be offered in Extended Studies. I had an entire plan for next year that depended on the possibility of taking these courses and it was just smashed to pieces right then. But it didn't even matter. Now I can take the months between September and January to work, save more money for school. For a motorcycle and to get lessons for both driving and riding. To maybe travel some, see India. See more of the States. To do fucking anything I want to because I don't have a kid on the way, or a mortgage or a husband. I think I'll apply to work on a cruise again, now that I'm old enough to do so.
I know it's terrible to compare the transitions of my life to those in others', and to evaluate my success based on what I see other people doing, but it has really opened my eyes to what my life could be if I make good or bad decisions. I'm learning to relax and not to stress about how short or long my life might end up being I learn from my own mistakes plenty, and I will learn through others' as well.
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